Israeli Soldiers Sweep Into Lebanon

May 3, 1988|By Los Angeles Times

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Israeli soldiers swept into the army-proclaimed ''security zone'' in southern Lebanon Monday, searching for Palestinian guerrillas in their biggest operation north of the border in more than two years.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the action, which he said was ''due to the growing number of terrorist attempts to infiltrate into Israel for the purpose of committing murder and terrorist attacks for hostage bargaining purposes.'' He said the action would end ''with the conclusion of the search.''

In Washington, U.S. officials said about 2,000 Israeli soldiers moved into the Bekaa Valley in south Lebanon.

The Israeli army spokesman declined to say whether Israeli forces had pushed beyond the security zone into Moslem and Palestinian-controlle d territory.

Although the spokesman gave no further details, Lebanese and other sources indicated that as many as 1,500 soldiers were in the action. The sweep was centered in the eastern sector of the security zone near the point where the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli borders meet.

This area was the site of several recent infiltration attempts into Israel, including one April 26 in which an Israeli battalion commander and another soldier from an elite army unit were killed and two other soldiers were wounded. Six Arab guerrillas also were killed in that attempt, as was another in the same area the next day.

In all, there have been at least a dozen attempted infiltrations from the north since Nov. 25, when a lone guerrilla in a hang glider crossed the border and attacked an army base, killing six Israeli soldiers before he was shot to death. At least 11 Israeli soldiers have been killed along the northern border in the last five months.

Beirut Radio reported late Monday that Israeli ships and airplanes were taking part in the operation, bombarding Lebanese villages in the south. United Nations sources confirmed that there was ''lots of illumination'' along the Lebanese coast both north and south of Tyre, which is about 15 miles north of the border with Israel.

However, the sources said that U.N. outposts scattered through much of the more populous western portions of the area had detected no other unusual activity as of midnight local time.

The last time the Israelis were known to have crossed the border in such force was in February 1986, when they made a six-day sweep through the western sector to search for two captured comrades and to punish their abductors.

By the end of the operation, 13 Lebanese had been killed, a dozen wounded, more than 100 taken prisoner and about 3,000 questioned.

Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, ostensibly to destroy a virtual ''state within a state'' of the Palestine Liberation Organization that had taken root in southern Lebanon and posed a constant threat to Israel's northern settlements.

Another goal of the invasion, it was later confirmed, was to install a friendly Christian government in Beirut that would make peace with Israel.

While it succeeded in driving most PLO fighters out of Lebanon, the action by more than 15,000 soldiers failed in its second purpose.

And by the time Israel finally withdrew most of its forces three years ago, the incursion into Lebanon was widely perceived in Israel as perhaps its most unsuccessful war.

As part of its withdrawal plan, the army declared a strip extending as much as 10 miles north of the border to be a ''security zone,'' over which Israel would exercise military hegemony in cooperation with an allied, mostly Christian militia known as the South Lebanon Army.

A few hundred Israeli soldiers have remained on duty inside the security zone since to back up the militia, and thousands more soldiers are based just inside the northern border, ready to enter Lebanon at a moment's notice if needed to put down trouble.